Second Year
by Five Minutes Til Bedtime
Summary: Second year was the worst. Tom Riddle was the least of his worries. One-shot.


Title: **Second Year**

Fandom: Harry Potter

Summary: Second year was the worst. Tom Riddle was the least of his worries. One-shot.

WARNINGS: Non-graphic sexual/physical child abuse.

Word Count: 1,387

* * *

Second year was the worst.

It's a funny thing to think about, looking back. Funny seeing how that was the year his foe was more like him than any other time. Students, orphans, quiet boys with no other homes than the castle that protected them – Harry knew enough of that life to understand Riddle uncomfortably well, much as he hated to think on it. But then, Tom Riddle was never Harry's biggest foe. Tom Riddle wasn't anyone but a dead boy in a book right up until the end of it and, frankly, as far as adventures go at least no one had ended up killed that time.

Tom Riddle did not make Harry's second year the worst. Riddle was merely the answer at the end of the book – the ending flick of the conductor's stick which silenced the braying orchestra.

Tom Riddle was the least of Harry's worries.

Harry Potter did not have an easy life, for the first eleven years of his life it was not a good one either. The Dursleys were frightened people and it never takes much for a scared person to lash out. Petunia was bitter and through her Harry learned hunger. Vernon was a bully and from him Harry learned his colors by counting the purple, green, and yellow bruises across his skin. Dudley was the product of his environment and while it wasn't really his fault no one could say they were surprised when he grew up to be his father.

The truth was, Harry had run away before. The truth was, his cupboard hadn't always been his home. When he was seven and stinging from a sharp slap from his aunt in a desolate supermarket isle Harry had fled away and not looked back. He'd lasted on the streets five days before the cops picked him up. The group home they dropped him in taught him the other painful, confusing things hands could be used for and he'd run away from there three weeks later, dragging his hungry, beaten body until he'd collapsed on the porch of his relatives' house where the cupboard he'd been shoved in became the safest place he'd known in years.

And in that small space under the stairs, Harry never forgot the terror of that month away. When his aunt threatened to send him to the orphanage because he was a bad boy and bad boys didn't get to have families and homes Harry quivered and remembered the hands and the darkness, the cries of rows and rows of homeless boys, the stench of urine and sweat, and the squeak of mattress springs groaning, sometimes far away, sometimes right beneath him.

And yes, second year was the worst. Second year there was no Privet Drive to run back to, no cupboard where he could close his eyes and pretend not to exist. There were just too wide grins and eyes that wouldn't leave and a voice, calling him after class, smiling down on him from all directions in the room, hands twilling a polished wand as the owner gently rebuked him.

Detention, Mr. Potter. I see you didn't do the reading.

I'll see you in detention after dinner, Harry, you were late for class again.

Come now, Harry, it will be our little secret. Wouldn't you much rather spend detention with me rather than mean, old Snape?

Hands. They were everything. They could hold or they could hit, caress or slap. Hands could love and they could hurt. Sometimes, hands did both.

Harry tried telling – he really, really did. Only there must be something wrong with him because no one ever saw it – or maybe they did and just didn't care.

After his first year, Professor McGonagall made him swear to come to her or another teacher if he was in trouble, rather than trying to take it on himself. And he tried. It was only after the second time and he had detention again in a few hours. He remembered knocking on her door, sitting down at her desk, and trying not to beg when he asked her to please take over his detention. She had peered down at him and smiled – smiled!.

Mr. Potter, not all of get to sign thank you cards to fans as punishment, I suggest you enjoy it. You were late to class and you'll just have to deal with the consequences.

And Harry remembered getting up stiffly, unable to stop the shaking in his legs, and hiding in an old classroom while he cried, the first time he'd really done so in years. Not since –

And of course _he _had been furious. Touching became hitting and then more touching.

Then he'd been thrown to the floor, feeling the cold stones seep through his naked skin as the man looked down at him eyes disappointed, wand held aloft.

Detention for a week, Potter, for being so naughty. Can't you see that I am merely trying to teach you to be a nice little boy? _Obliviate!_

Harry didn't know why the spell didn't work. He just knew the _he _noticed this and still went on, week after week, detention after detention.

You really are a little gem, aren't you Harry. I don't even have to _obliviate_ you, do I? You like it. Hush - it will be our little secret.

Harry heard voices in the walls. He could speak to snakes. The students hated him. The teachers were wary of him. Ron looked at him sideways and Hermione persistently told him to eat more.

One day after another dismal class Professor Snape called him back after class, loomed over him, and asked him in quiet, clipped tones if there was anything he'd would like to tell him. Harry, panicked, had fled from the room and spent the evening emptying his stomach while Moaning Myrtle cackled madly somewhere deep inside the pipes.

There was a diary that showed Harry a world out a time, a girl's death, and a monster caught.

There was a diary that Harry filled with words and got words in return.

_He's stopped giving me detentions now. I find notes telling me when to meet him. I go and I don't know why. This morning I found I note on my pillow. It wasn't there when I went to bed._

_There were three older boys who went around some nights. When I was little, they would come into my room. Then I learned magic. They never bothered me again._

_I've always been good at keeping secrets. Uncle Vernon taught me that. I think I still have a scar from that time._

_When I was five I was adopted. The family was horrible and the father was cruel. Even then I was returned after a week – he didn't like the way I stared. I never told anyone that. _

_At the home I heard noises. I didn't know what they were at first. Then they came to my bed one night. _

_I ran away once, right after I started using magic. The war was going on. I was half dead by the time the police brought me back. The 'little Jew' they called me because I was so skinny. The boys came back for a while. I was weak._

_Sometimes I can feel him breathing on me when I know he's not around. There are bruises on my hips that are from his hands. It feels as if he is always right there behind me, watching._

_I killed a rabbit once. It was the first thing I ever intentionally killed. Sometimes I can still feel its furry neck and hear the crack it made. I threw up that time – never again._

When Harry met Riddle he was not afraid, he was not even angry though Ginny was lying nearly dead at his feet. The older boy had nodded at him and his red eyes glittered.

Do you want me to kill him?

Are you going to kill me?

If I must. I will kill him after, if you'd like.

…please.

Second year was the worst. Not because of Tom Riddle. Riddle was merely a shade of a boy in a book – a boy who Harry understood all too well.

But in the end it didn't matter. After all, Harry was only too good at keeping secrets.


End file.
